Court hears details of missing fireplaces

Valuable period marble fireplaces and wrought iron balustrades mysteriously disappeared from a Government building during major refurbishment, a judge was told today.

Justice Katherine Delahunt heard in the Circuit Civil Court that some of the fireplaces weighed more than a ton.

Mr Sean O’Siothchain, counsel for Leopard Security Ltd, told the court the valuable items disappeared from Tyrone House, Marlborough Street, Dublin, in mid 1998 and the company carrying out refurbishment, Pierse Building Services, was claiming his client should bear responsibility for the loss.

Mr O’Siothchain said Leopard Security, of St Agnes Road, Crumlin, Dublin, had been employed by Pierse to provide security at the site which had been left unsecured for several months prior to his client taking up duties there.

He said Leopard Security was seeking more than €15,500 for security services but Pierse had claimed it was entitled to repudiate the contract and payment on the basis of its alleged loss.

Mr Peter Flynn, head of the security firm, said his company had been employed to provide only night security at the site and the theft could have taken place prior to his company taking up duty or during day time working operations.

He said Pierse had never informed his company or staff of valuable items such as marble fireplaces or balustrades within Tyrone House. He felt this had not been done because they were not there when his company took up security duties.

Judge Delahunt said Leopard Security had been hired to provide only partial security for a period and then full time security from July 1998 and she accepted that prior to July the situation in security terms had been chaotic.

She said she would make no observation on what had happened to the missing items and felt the missing fire places were not the responsibility of the security firm under its contract. However photographic evidenced revealed that a balustrade had been in place at a time when the security firm was on the site.

Judge Delahunt said a more comprehensive security service may have been required and both parties seemed to have under estimated their responsibility in this regard. At the end of the day Pierce had got what it had paid for and while Leopard Security may not have been as on top of its

job as they should have been the company was entitled to recover payment for services rendered under its contract.

She said there had been some contribution by Leopard Security towards Pierce ’s losses and reduced the award of €15,540 by 25 per cent to €11,655.